Tesla expects the company will reach 200,000 electric car shipments during the year, when consumers buy Tesla electric car can enjoy the federal tax credits will gradually reduce until it is completely canceled.

This is a major event, especially for those consumers who are still struggling with the cheaper version of Model 3, and many of them are counting on a substantial reduction in car costs with this substantial tax credit.

In a filing with the SEC on Friday, Tesla wrote: “Under the current rules, a $ 7,500 tax credit is payable in the United States for the purchase of a qualified electric vehicle with a battery capacity of at least 17 kWh But once we have delivered 200,000 qualified electric vehicles, the federal tax credit will start to decline from the next natural quarter, and we expect the total number of qualified electric vehicles we deliver to be about 2018 A time to reach 200,000. ”

It should be noted that, after Tesla delivered a total of 200,000 qualified electric vehicles, the tax credit discount was not immediately canceled but gradually reduced within a year. The first 6 months of tax credit will be reduced from The $ 7,500 dropped to $ 3,750 and then dropped further to $ 1,875 over the next six months, with a total elimination of one year later.

Given the higher price of Model S and Model X, I believe this change will not have a significant impact on the sales of these two models. But for the mass of consumers who are still struggling with the Model 3, this is annoying, especially since it is not yet clear when Tesla will meet its production targets.

Tesla is not the only manufacturer that delivers nearly 200,000 electric vehicles. GM spokesman Friday also announced that the company expects to reach 200,000 delivery conditions this year.

Including pure electric vehicles Chevrolet Bolt and hybrid Chevy Volt, GM has sold more than 160,000 electric vehicles.

General Motors spokesman Elizabeth Winter said: “Although the federal government incentives to attract buyers to buy electric cars is very important, but we provide customers with a convincing product, the price is also great Attractive. ”

The cancellation of tax credits will greatly increase consumers’ car costs and may also affect demand. Tesla sells only electric cars; for GM, hybrids make up less than 2% of its total U.S. car sales.

Tesla sold about 300,000 cars worldwide, but it did not reveal the exact sales in the U.S. market. Tesla started delivering Model 3 last year, its first mass-market model, starting at about $ 35,000. The company has received orders and deposits for 500,000 cars.

Buyers will not receive any tax benefits before they pick up, and Model 3 already has production bottlenecks. As a result, Tesla delivered only Model 1764 at the end of last year.

As a result, only a small percentage of buyers of Model 3 receive a full tax credit, and some may decide to return if the latter buyer can not enjoy a tax credit, although they have already paid a $ 1,000 deposit, but this is Can be returned

Because the waiting list is too long, anyone who has now ordered Model 3 may not be able to enjoy the full tax credit. Tesla website said those who ordered a higher price of the Model X or Model S may qualify for full tax credit, because these models have shorter waiting times, usually only 2 to 8 weeks.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Tesla also disclosed that the company added 7,500 employees last year, an increase of about 25%. The company now employs 37,500 people.

With the exception of Tesla and General Motors, other electric vehicle manufacturers such as Toyota, Nissan and Ford are still far from delivering 200,000 vehicles. Nissan Leaf, Nissan’s all-electric Nissan Leaf, for example, has seen sales of only 115,000 units in the United States since its launch in 2010.

According to media reports, a long article published recently by the famous American technology magazine “Connection” elaborated that Google is relying on Rick Osterloh to reshape the hardware strategy in order to integrate the Google Assistant Google Assistant People’s lives.

A few seconds later, on the morning of October 4, 2016, Rick Osterloh showed the world’s public the latest Google product portfolio. At this point less than 6 months before he founded Google’s new hardware division.

In April, Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, was appointed to Ostrow, hoping he could turn Google’s software giant into a hardware device maker that could compete with Apple. Ostro has not had enough time to understand all of Google’s products, let alone to conceive and release a series of new products.

However, he was here, tall, broad shoulders, wearing a gray short-sleeved Henry blouse. When he stepped onto the left side of the stage, greeting reporters and analysts at Full House, it was clear that he was in a little restless.

A few minutes ago Pizarre stood on the stage did not relieve Ostrow’s tension. Picazzan pointed out the historical significance of the day and brought indestructible reasons to the audience.

“We are at a groundbreaking time in computer technology,” Pizjik told the audience, explaining how artificial intelligence will lead to a revolution on the Internet or smartphones. And Google’s focus is on the Google Assistant, a virtual digital assistant for months. Google’s vision is to create a “personal Google” for everyone on the planet through virtual digital assistants, helping users search for information, get things done, work more easily and more enjoyably.

Pizjaya made it clear that Google Assistant is a re-noted product under Google, and that Google has invested heavily in developing electronics that integrate Google Assistant. Then he introduced Osterlo, the newcomer who will make this vision a reality.

Within the next hour, Osterlo and his new colleagues launched six products at a stretch, including the Pixel smartphone, the Home smart speaker and the Daydream View virtual reality headset. These products are not dominated by Ostrow, before it came to Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Google has already started to develop hardware devices, but most are not very successful.

Google no longer wants to develop gadgets that make people feel bored. Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has become the world’s second-largest company, with software developed by Google that serves all the world through apps and websites.

But the nature of computing is changing, and the next phase of development will no longer be around app stores and smartphones. It will focus on the development of artificial intelligence devices that fit seamlessly into the daily lives of its owners. This includes voice assistants, simple wearable devices, home smart devices, and augmented reality devices.

In other words, the future requires more hardware, which Google represents as a threat to itself. Users will no longer search for what they want by logging in to Google’s site; they will only ask for Echo smart speakers within their hearing range and will not care what algorithm Echo will use to answer that question.

Or they’ll use Siri because it’s included with the button on the iPhone. Google needs to figure out exactly how to compete with the electronics manufactured by Amazon, Apple and other technology companies, especially with products from Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino.

Google does have some huge advantages – its software and artificial intelligence features are unparalleled. However, companies have repeatedly tried to develop the hardware in a way that builds the software, but every time it goes missing.

Its innovative streaming media device, Nexus Q, suffered a dramatic failure. In a matter of months, the so-called “best of breed” Nexus handsets have outpaced rivals and even Google’s own hardware partners. As Google Glass Google Glass, we all know what is going on.

Ostro’s job is not to develop new hardware products. His mission is to teach the software company how to overcome the drying up, messiness and lengthy time necessary to develop hardware products and change the corporate culture from the inside. It is not enough just to have great software and the best artificial intelligence researchers in the industry. In order to compete with Apple, Google had to learn how to develop good hardware products.

Ostrow, who is responsible for Google’s hardware renaissance, is fascinated by electronics. Ostrow, who grew up in Los Angeles, once disassembled junk computers in his father’s office trying to assemble a supercomputer. Although eventually ended in failure, but still good memories of Ostrow.

Ostrow initially obsessed with sports, from an early age he was tall and athletic ability, both a volleyball player, but also a basketball player, he was admitted to Stanford University not because of its reputation in Silicon Valley, and Because you can keep moving in the best school in California.

However, in the freshman year, his knees injured twice, may end sports career. Ostrow’s mood was very low. He said: “Much of my identity is about track and field, and I have to completely change myself.” He started looking for other ways to get his positive feeling in sports: teams working toward common goals, Pleasure and usual pleasure.

He found the same feeling plan in a project and began working hard to make up for the shortcomings in his professionalism. Ostero is immersed in strategic thinking about computing as well as problem-oriented solutions.

Still, Ostrow is still a sports fan – as he can easily see at his Google office – with a huge poster about Warriors star Stephen Curry – but technology The industry soon became his destination.

After graduating from Stanford University in 1994, Ostro won a consulting job, but he did not like he was dealing only with documents and slides. So he went to Stanford University Business School to rebuild. After some internship with Amazon, he found a job at Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, a venture capital firm, who looked at possible investments in mobile technology.

At that time, the BlackBerry started to attract public interest, and Ostrow also proceeded to study it in depth. He built Blackberry’s first device, the internet pager, Inter @ ctive Pager, and was surprised by the productivity of this small form factor communication device. He has been thinking about this thing.

In Kleiner’s portfolio, there is a company called Good Technology, which has assigned Osterro to help shape its business model.

Initially, Good’s plan was to develop a module for the Handspring Visor (a modular PDA) that many would consider a PDA as the next big computing platform. Good’s first device was an MP3 player module called SoundsGood. However, Visor never took off, and SoundsGood also sold very badly.

Ostrow came up with a new idea: let’s compete with the BlackBerry. He thinks Good can develop simple synchronization and messaging software, and the BlackBerry is already very powerful and valuable in this space, with any competing idea appealing to investors. Good raised millions of dollars.

Good is a software company, but it requires hardware to run the code. The team met with the BlackBerry who just started making smartphones. Blackberry executives looked at what Good was developing, “They exclude it because Good’s software is better than BlackBerry,” Osterlo said. “They realize we’re enemies, not friends.”

At that time, Palm, Danger and Nokia are developing smart phones, but none of them are comparable to the BlackBerry. Both Ostrow and Good are well aware that the only way to find a working device for their software is to develop their own hardware and as such they are starting to develop a G100 device similar to a BlackBerry.

Ostrow has benefited from recalling his development of the G100. “It is very interesting to go through the entire design process and test with the user,” he said. Everything about hardware development is new and complex: how to get the keyboard right, how to adjust the trackball until it feels perfect, and how to make sure the battery lasts for days.

Ostro said: “The development of this product is very difficult when we ship, I think ‘This is what I want to do forever’.” He not only found his mission, but also clearly from the software In the most profitable, the only way is to develop matching hardware products.

Unfortunately, this is only Ostrow’s wishful thinking, Good does not want to develop the hardware forever. The G100, which went public in 2002, received wide acclaim in the industry, but others at the company saw it as a reference device and a blueprint that other companies could follow and adjust. They think the mobile phone industry will look like a personal computer: Many companies produce hardware but run the same software.

As a result, there is no need to develop a good mobile phone product. Ostrow said: “After that we seem to have walked into the desert and tried one new device after another, but none of them matched our software.” Good worked on software for every cell phone at the time, and even And to inject HTC and other mobile phone manufacturers to improve the user experience, but no longer find the same products as the G100.

“Companies come to us and say ‘we like your software, but we hate Treos’,” Ostero refers to Palm’s smartphone line. He never forgot it.

In 2006, Good was acquired by Motorola, the giants of this feature machine was already in the siege of the smartphone maker. Motorola has no software expertise and no plan to develop smartphones. Good joins like a savior. But the timing can no longer be worse. Just days after the acquisition was completed, Motorola’s Razr was once an incredible cash cow and stopped selling almost overnight.

Soon after, Apple released the iPhone. Osterre clearly the trend has been irreversible: Prior to the deal with Motorola, he and Good worked with Apple to develop software on the new device iPhone. He told bosses who did not like Apple’s touchscreen phones that they were laughing at the future.

While dealing with Apple, Ostrow and Good have also been trying to integrate their software with a smartphone operating system called Android.

Now, as a Motorola employee, he thinks Android is the only way companies can fight the iPhone. Ostrow is convinced that Motorola’s only hope is to develop as soon as possible an equal level of smart phones, which means to use the Android operating system.

Motorola eventually went into effect, largely because of the efforts of the new chief executive, Sanjay Jha, who closed almost all of his divisions except Android after taking office in 2008. Ostrow helped develop and release the Cliq and later Droid, the first Android phone to be great, and the device that pulled Motorola back from the cliff.

Pictured: Before Ostro joined Google, the company’s hardware product development team was up against each other. Ostrow has focused hardware products, including Daydream View virtual reality headsets, Chromecast laptops, home smart speakers Google Home and Pixel smartphones.

Shortly after, Ostrow left to join Skype as product manager for two years. However, Ostrow breakthrough time in the hardware field is very short. Google is buying Motorola for $ 12.5 billion and is looking for new leadership for the company. Dennis Woodside, Google’s senior vice president, was named chief executive of Motorola. Google senior vice president Jonathan Rosenberg called Ostrow and asked if he was willing to come back to lead Motorola’s product management team.

The offer from Google seems to be a perfect match. This gives Osterlo the opportunity to develop hardware inside of Google and work with the successful Android team. With Google’s hardware and software support, they finally have the capital to compete with the iPhone.

but it is not the truth. Because of fear of alienating other Android partners such as Samsung and LG, Google makes every effort to maintain Motorola’s independence. “There’s virtually no technology consolidation,” Ostrow said. “That’s not what I expected.” He had thought he would eventually combine software and hardware, but Motorola was seen as a completely separate company . He said: “It’s really close to what I’ve been dreaming of, but it never got there.”

The relationship between Google and hardware has always been awkward. Most of the company’s hardware products are born in the same way: Someone has a good idea of ​​the software, but they can not find the right device to run the software. Then, the man started to make the device himself, and the team did little to help it.

Google tends to see these products as a reference device or source of inspiration, confirms the viability of an idea, and hopes that the hardware manufacturer’s ecosystem can benefit from it. So from Chromebox, Nexus Q to Nexus Player, there are so many similar Google products and abandoned ideas.

This is not surprising: manufacturing hardware runs counter to Google’s entire corporate culture. Companies exclude standardized processes and management, but these are two things that hardware manufacturers can not do without. In fact, Google encourages and promotes chaos in its software development and invariably invites anyone in the company unexpectedly to develop something, even just to see if it works. (Google even once tried a corporate structure without any manager.)

Google’s most successful products are constantly improving. Eric Schmidt, a former chief executive, calls the system “posted and iterated.” His Proposal in “How Google Works” is a consistent concept that does not try to get things done right once.

Schmidt writes: “Create a product, post it, see how it works, then design and implement improvements, then push it out … Post and iterate, and the fastest companies in the process will win “When Google changed its name to Alphabet, all of the company’s long-term projects seemed to be halting and it was being spun off from Google’s product line. These projects are called “moonshots,” and it seems like anything that takes more than a year is impossible.

But release and iteration are not suitable for hardware development at all. A fine-tuning of a hardware product can take weeks and cost millions of dollars at the same time. Every minute change in the hardware product spills over the entire supply chain, changing vendor time schedules, changing existing equipment, and slowing down all progress.

If some of the time is postponed, you will miss the original delivery date and will not reverse your Black Friday. You want to set 50% more goods? Well, even if you’re lucky, you’ll have to wait six months. The hardware world will not change because of your whim.

Even as hardware development goes well, Google’s corporate culture does not support these teams to get the software they need. “We had to beg for all the software teams,” said Rishi Chandra, Google’s senior staff. He was responsible for developing Google TV platform in 2010, but eventually failed. He was then responsible for developing Google Home.

Engineers working on Chrome or Android are accustomed to developing products that can reach millions or even billions of people. They will ask Chandra, how do you attract so many users? Why do we care about your product until it can land?

Google’s corporate culture is exactly the opposite of Apple. Apple’s software executives are always concerned with specific products, such as Craig Federighi, senior vice president of software engineering, whose goal is to make the iPhone a better place. At Google, however, the priorities for various issues do not seem to be one of the top priorities because they support the products they own, as well as the products they use for partners and across the Internet.

Google’s corporate culture revolves around software. This is its strength and its billions of dollars in profits. This approach is no different and no exception in promoting virtual assistants. Of course, Google’s determination seems to be much higher this time.

Pizzer is convinced that such a useful chat machine will be the way for billions of people to interact with Google in the future. If right, virtual assistants can be ubiquitous artificial intelligence to help users do all their everyday tasks – whether through mobile phones, Google Home smart speakers, smart home-bound smart bulbs, dishwashers and thermostats, and more .

In addition to the keyboard and screen, it connects information and services to users in a more natural and contextual manner. It may even encourage consumers to use Google services more often.

So what if Google did wrong? No doubt Amazon Alexa, Apple’s Siri and Microsoft’s Cortana are ready.

In the early days of speech technology, users were still struggling to find out what their virtual assistant had other than setting timers and playing music. However, the only way to improve virtual assistants is to make Google believe that it is now worthwhile to interact with virtual assistants. Google needs more data to understand more of the sound, to do more, to persuade third-party developers to expand its capabilities and to integrate virtual assistants into their hardware products. The key first step is to ensure that users always have easy access to Google’s virtual assistant wherever they are.

In the past, when Google developed hardware products, it was mainly through partnerships with experienced manufacturers. However, its relationship with Android partners is on the decline. As the most important partner of the Android operating system, Samsung is developing its own virtual assistant Bixby, and deliberately keep a distance from Google. Google is also working with its traditional Nexus project to work on new devices with hardware manufacturers such as LG or Huawei, but its own hardware development can not rely on it.

In fact, apart from being able to voice their opinions on the aesthetic, these partnerships leave Google with nothing to control, and partners often retain the best for themselves. Ostero pointed out: “Last year, HTC helped us to develop Pixel smartphones, but in a few months they released the U11, which has the industry’s best smartphone camera. In fact, every Nexus device Replaced by the handset released by Google hardware partners just after it. ”

Even more unfortunate is that Google has given up its own hardware skills, in 2014 for about 3 billion US dollars to Motorola sold to Lenovo. Nest, the other hardware vendor acquired by Google, has lost its founders and is in turmoil with management and product storms. If Google wants to develop its own hardware, then it needs to start again – this time to be done within Google.

Ostrow is also planning to resign from Motorola as Google prepares to prototype its hardware products by early 2016. He did not want to go to Lenovo’s headquarters in China, and he himself had been offered an offer to go to the CEO of DocuSign, an electronic document signing company. He called Jonathan Rosenberg, his long-time adviser and advisor, to thank him for all his help during Google.

Rosenberg interrupted him: “You said I was helpful, right?” Yes, absolutely, Osterlo answered. “So, would you help me a favor? Talk to Sandal?” Rosenberg asked. He told Ostrow that Pizjay is planning to set up a hardware team, hoping for some advice. Rosenberg also emphasized that it was just a suggestion, with no other ideas.

The meeting between Ostrow and Pizzer soon turned into an interview, and both sides raised many questions. After several days of exchange, Ostrow realized that Pizjay was talking about his dream job. He also began to believe that Google eventually began to take hardware manufacturing seriously.

But Ostrow had a lesson. So he found Hiroshi Lockheimer, head of Google’s Android team, who had worked with Lockheimer while working at Google, who happened to be Osterlo’s closest friend. They spent the whole day talking about how they became co-workers again. Ostro raised many questions about how to integrate hardware and software, and how internally-built hardware coexists with other Android ecosystems.

Ostro said: “If it would be as difficult and tense as Motorola, I would not want to join the company.” However, he found the opposite: Google is ready to make hardware a priority and take it very seriously. Eventually Ostrow called DocuSign, declining to be chief executive officer. This time he became a real Google employee again.

After joining Google, Osterlo immediately with Rosenberg to look for each of Google’s hardware projects, regardless of size. They found more than a dozen projects involving more than 1,000 people. Some work on Nexus phones while others work on a new product line called Pixel. There are also many people in the widespread promotion of such long-term projects such as Google Glass and Project Ara modular smart phones. Some Google employees are developing Chromebooks while others are researching a new Wi-Fi router.

There is no centralized management of these teams and no overall plan. Ostro called it a loose federation, probably similar to the “hardware of the European Union”, anyway, is not good words.

Ostrow has all his hardware teams under their own leadership, making 55% of these 1,000 employees new managers. Instead of letting the head of each product take responsibility, Ostrot opted to implement a “functional” architecture that allows its leaders to monitor Google’s entire hardware organization to the maximum.

Ivy Ross, who was the head of Google Glass, was responsible for the hardware design. Mario Queiroz is responsible for product management. Ana Corrales, Nest’s chief financial officer and chief operating officer, has long been a manufacturing executive who oversees all business operations and supply chains. The team started to focus on planning and forecasting and simplified communication with suppliers. They set out a five-year plan that was once a curse for Google.

And Ostrow worked with people who described him as a benevolent, a good boss. Chandra said: “What I most admire Rick is that he really is talking about patience.” In conversation, he was very excited and tended to spend 45 minutes answering all the simple questions. Based on past and present colleagues’ opinions, he is the perfect candidate for the job: high attention to detail, unresponsive panic, and quick decision-making. Most importantly, he is a well-deserved product geek.

“He always changed his cellphone, and he wants us to keep changing his cellphone,” said Claras. “I do not want to change my phone!”

Part of the motivation behind Ostro’s new structure is ensuring that no one feels that his job is tied to a product, so they do not panic if the product is killed. Because Ostrow needs to kick off some of the products.

He traverses every piece of hardware in Google’s plan, choosing which one to keep and which one to stop. Ostrow said every decision is not easy, but two of them are particularly difficult.

As early as working in Motorola, Ostrow worked for Ara’s modular cellphone project and is fully committed to the project’s mission: to develop a $ 50 cellphone with upgradable parts that can last longer, and More environmentally friendly than any other device. However, the device is less modular than anyone wants.

“So it’s just like any other cellphone, except that it adds 6 modules to the back,” said Ostrow. He just wanted to make a phone, not a lot of phones, so he closed the Ara project.

Pictured: A year and a half after taking part in Google, Oslo at the conference described how Google applied artificial intelligence to the latest electronic products.

Google Glass is also true. Ostrow understood the project’s vision, but could not figure out how to get there quickly. He screened out something that, although indispensable for the development of an excellent facial augmentation device, was not yet achievable: batteries that last longer in smaller packages, produce less heat but are faster Processor, and potential user groups that are prepared to use such devices.

“It will be a key part of our job in the long run, but timing is a key uncertainty.” Meanwhile, Osterre re-released the Google Glass for Business Edition, which includes factory workers And warehouse employees, including niche markets.

Ostrow has also been working with top Google executives to figure out what Google’s hardware strategy should be in reshaping the organizational structure and screening product lines. These executives shape clichés such as “radical help” and seek ways to communicate humanity and proximity to the public, but their focus is on three words, specifically artificial intelligence, software, and hardware.

He had to accept the fact that even if Google started taking electronics seriously, the focus of the company was always elsewhere. Osterlo likes to say that Moore’s Law that predicts computing power is about to die out, making it more and more difficult to make a fundamental leap in hardware capabilities. He said Google’s strength lies in its algorithms and neural networks. Austro’s job is to Google’s AI more deeply into people’s lives.

The task for the new hardware team is clear: find more ways to get Google Assistant Assistant to emerge and build a sustainable business around it.

This must be fast, because Google is already behind, Siri and Alexa have been deeply rooted in the minds of consumers. Osteros put a lot of resources into the Pixel mobile project, which is a new project launched between several Google employees and HTC, Google for the first time assumed full responsibility for design and engineering, HTC is just a product manufacturer.

Ostrow hopes through this phone, Google will eventually be able to provide their own software the required physical form. Ostrow said: “We have a great ecosystem on the Android operating system, but I do not think anyone can actually deliver a complete Google product experience.”

Integrated hardware and software design can make a more detailed point of decision-making, people can fall in love with the phone. Seang Chau, vice president of engineering at Google’s Pixel mobile team, cites an example: Swiping should be smooth and responsive, requiring in-depth understanding of things like when to start the GPU, how to adjust the processor, how to manage the power, and even which core of the chip is at Run at any given time.

“You pick up another cellphone that has no detailed decision and no optimized cellphone,” he said, noting the difference. Apple has been advocating its products for many years, precisely because it is still in the process of developing software and building hardware, and Google is now following suit.

In addition to Pixel, Ostrov decided to build the other devices that match with Assistant in the same way.

Another team within Google has in the past released two very good laptops, called the Chromebook Pixel, but with limited performance. Ostrow told the team to develop a lighter, thinner, and better laptop and integrate Assistant. They decided to name it Pixelbook and set out to do it. Another group started researching headsets called Pixel Buds, which allowed users to use Assistant without a phone. Google’s Home team and the Chromecast team are also involved in the overall work.

Ostrow said: “Ultimately, users may have a series of devices to complete the task.” Google will eventually think Tablet PC, will certainly consider augmented reality glasses, we will certainly consider wearable devices. But Osterho talked about “fighting for rights” by chasing device consumers to prove his team’s viability in the existing market.

As hardware staff gradually adapt to new roles, Ostrow and his team began to study their production needs. He and Claras visited Asian manufacturers, told them what Google is doing, how they would communicate, and reached a new deal with the supplier.

In November 2017, Ostrow led Google’s $ 1.1bn acquisition of HTC, which brought over 2,000 engineers to Google, many of whom have been developing Nexus and Pixel devices for the past decade people. Ostro said the deal “is very important to helping Google accelerate its expansion, and it takes a lot of time to hire one person and we want to speed things up.” In early 2018, Alphabet began letting Ostrow lead the entire Nest team, Control Google’s future in the smart home market.

Google has too many reasons to catch up. Apple and Samsung continue to introduce competitive software on their hardware products, and new-generation devices are getting better and better. However, Ostrow has stressed again and again (and reminds himself) that it is a good thing to develop a hardware product, which is a good thing, and patience is a virtue. This time, he had the opportunity to prove himself through a work on the combination of hardware and software.

Ivy Ross, head of hardware design at Google and one of Osterlo’s chief deputies, said: “It has a huge stake in him and the company. When you personally have reason to be motivated, you It will be better. ”

October 4, 2017, a year after Osterlo first demonstrated a new generation of Google hardware.

Everything is deja vu. Ostrow wore the same gray Henry blouse and stood on the side of the stage, while Pizjay also explained that artificial intelligence was the future. But this time they are in the Jazz Center in San Francisco, a bigger and more impressive place. They have been rehearsing for several weeks, adjusting the content and order of speeches to better explain Google’s goals.

Ostrow said the biggest difference is that this time he knows the story. In 2016, he tried to elaborate a grand story around many unrelated products. Although these products are very popular, the successes achieved are limited. (Amazon Echo is still killing Google Home, Pixel did not completely affect the iPhone’s bottom line.) 18 months after joining Google, Ostrow is to show the world the true face of Google’s hardware.

When he started to tell when he stepped onto the stage, he was obviously more confident than a year ago. He reminded viewers of the 2016 conference and mentioned the recent acquisition of HTC.

“By working more closely we will be able to better integrate Google’s hardware and software.” “And our products,” he continued, smiling, with joy, reassurance and ambition, “he said. In the second year the momentum has been more and more fierce. “He then turned to promotional video, users from YouTubers to Modern Family, as always, like Google Home smart speakers and Pixel mobile phone.

For the next 90 minutes, Ostrow and his team introduced a host of new products that incorporated Assistant. Ostrow explains how artificial intelligence can give users an excellent experience with ordinary hardware. When introducing Pixel 2, he mentioned that although the phone has only one camera, its software includes a face-training algorithm that makes standard photos even more beautiful. Google tweaked the audio processor inside Pixel Buds to simplify the experience of using the Assistant Assistant via headphones and to achieve real-time translation.

Home Max can adjust its audio output to match any space, improving sound quality. A new camera called “Clips” recognizes moments worth taking pictures and takes photos and videos on their own. Ostrow and his team show everyone how smarter their products are from their competitors, one by one, to everyone.

The press conference is very smooth, but not perfect. Some users find the OLED screen of Pixel 2 XL has some problems, Google chose this screen to show its cool context software. Others found problems with the Home Mini touch panel, accidentally turning it on and recording hours of audio. Commentators praised Pixel Buds product philosophy, but not every feature.

All of these issues have sickened Ostrow – “I suffer from insomnia every time my customers are upset,” he said, but it seems to inspire him. He knows how to deal with these challenges: more rigorous processes and more rigorous management. This is a typical hardware thinking, which he learned a long time ago. Different from the previous year, this time Osterllo has a clear direction of development. He leads the product is part of the entire company. After completing its mission, Google needs to do more than just launch the device, it needs to learn how to win.

To introduce myself in one sentence, I am a typical science and engineering girl who pursues rationality and logic. When things are telling principles and love to study things, if they can “know what they are, then they will have a great sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.”

The usual study of things a bit wide range of love, but since the holidays have flicker, then talk about usually at work and non-work to bring their own convenience App, I hope you can give some advice in front of the screen.

15 years, I began to appear on a laptop some modest problems, just gave an excuse to change a Mac. As for the reasons for the choice is also very simple, light enough to facilitate the business trip, do not tangle between Windows and iOS cross-platform work efficiency.

By now, for three years now, the App, which basically corresponds to the features, has started to solidify after a long period of screening, and few of them can be replaced. Of course, the most attractive feature of the fruit system in the office lies in the diversity of choices. The same type of App list, easy to use and more than one, the final choice of the key is “in addition to universal, this application is able to meet some of their own additional small needs.”

01 Kodi

Kodi is an open source multimedia software that is basically used by me as a player. Free, full platform support, including but not limited to Windows, Mac, iOS and Android, even Raspberry Pi.

From the video function point of view, Kodi basically supports all current video file formats, which is the biggest drawbacks of the system native QuickTime; can set the playlist, not as video sites support automatic jump titles, but support shortcuts, you can manually fast If the subtitle file and the video file name are the same, the software can recognize and load the subtitle by itself; the playback quality is good, but because I am not too pursue the picture quality, and the limitation of the screen size, I am not at Playback quality for horizontal comparison.

Kodi can also be used as a music player or photo viewer, but I have not used these, there are many other alternatives. Kodi is the most powerful in support of plug-ins, open-source environment provides a wide range of Add-on to choose from. If you like toss, check out Kodi’s website (https://kodi.tv/addons).

If you go to search, basically do not see the recommended Kodi, mostly recommended is VLC or MPlayerX and so on, because of its initial cost. In Kodi’s setting options, there are four levels of basic, standard, advanced and expert. The higher the level is, the more content can be set. The intention is to let those with different needs choose according to their own needs, but also increase the difficulty of getting started .

Kodi default language is English, before using the Chinese interface also need to first download the Chinese language packs in the plug-in job, now the new version is modified to no language pack content, the software will automatically download and install.

Language-related settings In Kodi’s Interface Settings, before setting, click on the gear position at the bottom left of the interface to set the level to standard, the language selection in the Regional, but before modifying the Fronts need to be set to Arial based in the Skin interface, and then Go back to the Regional to select Simplified Chinese, otherwise there will be garbled.

The second trouble is playing video. Mac default video playback will use QuickTime, but if you install kodi, even in the right-click open the way you can not find Kodi this option, then how to watch the video file?

In the main interface, select the movie, click on the right to enter the file area, and then select add video, enter the bottom screen Macintosh HD is the Mac’s hard drive, select Users- your user name-Documents, you can see the corresponding system “document” Under the folder, and then select the corresponding folder, click Add.

Kodi’s rule is that after adding a folder you can see all the subfolders and video class files in the folder, so it is recommended to put the video class files in a folder and then go to the different categories. In this way, only need to add once, do not need to repeat the operation, and the folder added by default is a playlist, start playing the video, the default will automatically play all videos within the current folder (excluding subfolders).

So why choose this one? I am plug-in feature, if you are not enthusiastic about this, then other free players VLC or MplayerX, are also a good choice.

02 Annotate

This is a screenshot of the labeling software, free, support for Mac and iOS dual platform, iOS function than the Mac to be slightly simpler, but the essence still.

The figure is Annotate’s user interface. The left side of the toolbar, the arrow from left to right, add text, highlight area selection, rectangular area selection, pencil, mosaic, crop, expression, color selection, transparency and screen display ratio, Disk, copy, save and other transmission methods.

Basically, Annotate’s features are simple and straightforward, and the most convenient is that you can save the file without having to save the file. Once the annotation is complete, click on the copy, and you can copy it to any text box to send to others.

In the screenshot, Annotate supports a variety of screenshots, you can also copy the picture annotation, you can customize the shortcut keys, you can multi-window operation, the latest version of the screen recording function, can be used to make Gif, this feature phone version Not yet in the moment

03 Irvue

Irvue is a free wallpaper changer software, the wallpaper source is to provide high quality high resolution image sharing site Unsplash. After the download is installed, Irvue will let you choose the direction of interest, then do not have to worry about, set the custom replacement time on the line. For the favorite wallpaper, you can download or you can manually set it as the default wallpaper, so tired of looking tired.

In addition to selecting your favorite photos for the first time, you can add more content to Unsplash later, plus an additional Nasa HD image. Astronomy enthusiasts should not be missed.

By the way, from the Windows habits, I like a clean and fresh desktop, so even in the Windows computer, the desktop is not even a recycle bin. The Mac comes with Spotlight feature is to open the folder and search has become very simple, so treat the desktop, treat your eyes and memory. Usually do a good job of file management, you can enjoy the high quality wallpaper friends.

04 Paste

Paste is a clipboard application, Mac exclusive, does not provide iOS version. This is not a free software, the current price is 68 yuan, but often there are discounts, I started with a price of 12, the impression is not completely free too.

For people who often deal with text, copy and paste these two shortcuts is definitely the most used. Paste’s function is to record multiple copies of the content, and then paste as needed. For text, you can choose to paste as plain text, or unchecked if it is formatted.

History can be unlimited number of times, look at the disk capacity, but in fact is not needed. Also do not need to be afraid to find trouble, Paste provides search function. You can also see in the picture, Paste will also record the copy of the content is obtained from that application.

Paste recordable content, including text, images, code and links, etc., but also very considerate of the security, if the system is a password or the like, it will not be saved. You can set rules for copying to exclude password-security applications, such as those copied in keychain or password management software.

To be honest, Paste I did not start the first time after I bought the Mac, but for a discount of about two months. But after using it, I feel totally different. The biggest convenience is that you do not need to switch back and forth between windows frequently in order to copy and paste, I can copy all the desired content in one breath and then paste it slowly.

On the back said that first, because mail tools according to the mailbox you are using is different, then there will be some different recommendations, and the second is that Airmail Mac version is not recommended at all, although compared to the price of iOS, Mac pricing 68 Not expensive. Mail Tools on Mac If you are looking for a simple, simple, self-contained applet, Office Outlook is your pick if you have complex requirements.

So Airmail reason is recommended iOS platform, the reason I chose it because, because the work is used Tencent mailbox, in addition to Tencent own products, Airmail is I tried numerous e-mail tools, send and receive real-time and effective Sexual support is best.

Of course, in addition to this point, Airmail can get Apple’s design award is also a reason.

The most basic multi-account support is not to say. Airmail interface simple enough to support Touch ID unlock. In the mail interface, you can slide directly, depending on the length of the slide can define different functions, you can set the four most commonly used functions here.

Sliding down the interface also has some corresponding shortcuts, including the display of unread mail, add attachments and so on. Basically, the commonly used operations can be completed in the mail interface, the operation is simple enough.

For a mail tool, these are considered the basic operation of the moment. Airmail’s strength lies in third-party software support and custom operations.

Third-party software Basically the current iOS platform text classes, To-Do classes and calendar classes and other tools have support, as well as Workflow workflow software.

Custom actions can add multiple actions, for example, you can choose to reply + send to the calendar, then reply to the message will be automatically saved to the calendar, do not need two operations. And in response to this operation, you can default reply content. All third-party software support related actions can be added to a custom action, greatly reducing the steps required for the operation.

So if you do not have to use Tencent’s e-mail, then from the functional point of view, there is absolutely one free Spark and Outlook to meet your requirements, not only do not bored with high color value, in terms of function, these three basic similar, Of course, third-party support and custom operation is less than Airmail.

However, Spark supports the Html signature feature, search capabilities more powerful than Airmail; Outlook is also intended to break the barriers to e-mail tools to increase support for other productivity tools, but Microsoft’s own product support will be better. Tencent only support for corporate email, both are not good, will miss mail or receive mail is not real-time, and occasionally there will be failed to send.

06 1Password

As the name suggests, this is a password management software, basically a full platform software, in addition to Mac and iOS also supports windows and Android, as well as for Chrome and Safari plug-ins. The essence is to use a password to manage all passwords, just remember that you set the password for the 1Password, other password settings and memory can be assigned to 1Password do.

1Password You can customize the need to set the length of the password and the number of special characters appear, you do not need to remember. Only need 1Passowrd recorded in the corresponding password, including the use of the environment, the corresponding user name and so on. If you open the 1Password small icon in the web page, it will automatically search the keyword display stored password. On Mac, copy in 1Password, you can copy directly to the current password input box.

In addition to the password, the activation code for the software can be saved in the same way. Although the App Store on the Mac, but many programs will not appear here, there are programs in addition to the App Store, will provide the official website to buy the version. In this case, you need to record the corresponding activation code and purchase activation code to use the account. Before using 1Password, I have a dedicated document to record the content.

However, these functions are basically password management tools are, 1Password is also reflected in the strong password protection. At this point, as long as the password leak easily falsified, but it is difficult to confirm. But so far, no password leak has occurred.

On the final recommendation, because 1Password charging method. The original 1Password price is not cheap, if you remember correctly, Mac version should be 328 yuan or higher. In the iOS side, 1Password provided a lot of times limit exemption, I was a limited income in the income, and later iOS into a free download, the original premium users to provide advanced features. Recently in the Mac side 1Password from one-size-fits-all into a subscription, the standalone version price becomes 418 yuan, 253 yuan annual fee users, the monthly fee is 28 and 50 versions. For the previous paid users is equivalent to the standalone version, and the difference between the different versions for the time being do not know. At least after I bought it, the current use has no effect.

If you use Safari, then Safari actually also provide this feature, with the keychain function, the basic can replace 1Password. 1Password There are many third-party software support, such as Pocket, you can directly call the content stored in 1Password, but Apple does not currently support third-party password management software, such as the App Store, enter the password, you can only copy from 1Password Back to the App Store paste. It is said that Apple will join third-party support in the follow-up, that 1Password experience will be better.

Write in the end

One of my friends backs a Mac from abroad last year and most of the scenarios envisioned are in places like Starbucks. Back to ask if I have any recommended App can be used, of course, the first principle is free, because in his concept, “the next application has to spend money,” something a bit unacceptable.

Many programs on the Mac do not need to be downloaded from the Mac App Store. Their official website offers download versions. Pay-as-you-use applications also have two to four week trial periods, enough for you to know if you need to spend money on the app . Really determined to buy it, you can also wait for a festival discount or limit exemption. If you download from the App Store, whether it is a computer or mobile phone, in fact, have a refund function. However, the purpose of the refund function is not intended for trial and error, so use caution.

Recommended this year, most of the free or free period I was in the bag, in addition to Mac version of 1Password, the remaining price did not exceed 30 yuan. These apps are just like fruit refunds, and are used and cherished.

In reality, if a passenger takes a taxi on the street, some drivers may find “sturdy” driving style motion sickness which will make passengers vomit. In the unmanned taxi era, consumers may face the same problem.

According to the latest news from foreign media, Waymo applied for a patent related to autopilot and motion sickness, which can design better driving routes or adjust driving style of unmanned vehicles according to whether passengers are motion sickness.

Waymo, a Google brother, has been developing autonomous driving cars for ten years. This year, the company will officially unmanned taxi service in Phoenix, the capital of Arizona.

According to CNNMoney, a U.S. financial news website, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office released a patent for Waymo on Thursday that Waymo will use to prevent unintended passengers from getting sick and vomiting in the car.

Patents show that Waymo will take various measures. For example, when taking a unattended taxi, consumers can choose a more stable driving route according to their history of motion sickness. The traffic along the route is more stable and the ride is more comfortable.

Of course, if the time is more tight passengers, you can endure the bumpy road, choose one of the fastest shortcuts.

Waymo mentioned in the patent that if a passenger experiences a motion sickness, the UAV will automatically adjust the driving style and the vehicle will avoid the traffic jam areas and avoid frequent start-up and parking.

UAV will also remind passengers who are likely to get motion sickness. Do not look down or read a book while on the road. In addition, UAV will also recommend these passengers to choose a more stable seat in the vehicle.

It is reported that in addition to Waymo, there are other companies and universities are also developing motion sickness-related technology. For example, University of Michigan researchers applied for a patent in January, and a passenger wearing a head mounted device will automatically warn of a possible vehicle motion sickness.

At the end of last year, Uber also applied for a patent which will be notified to passengers in advance if a self-driving vehicle is to make a turn.

For now, Waymo will be the world’s first commercially-available autonomous driving technology company. It is reported that Waymo has obtained the city passenger transport operating license from the Arizona state government (similar to Uber and Lyft), in addition to Chrysler ordered thousands of seven-car, will be modified self-driving hardware and software systems, in addition Waymo and insurance companies Signed a cooperation agreement to ensure unmanned taxi passengers in the aftermath of the accident.

Waymo’s unmanned taxi service will first be launched in the Phoenix area, which has been tested for years, and will be available in the future to other U.S. cities.

At present, the media are paying great attention to Waymo’s unmanned taxi which day officially take the road.

Waymo rival Uber is also currently conducting a taxi-free test in Phoenix. According to data released not long ago, Uber picked up 50,000 unmanned taxis in pilot U.S. unmanned cities across the United States. However, Uber these vehicles are also equipped with at least one backup driver or testing staff, not yet completely “self-driving car.”

Google is the undisputed winner in consumer digital maps and nowadays, driverless cars also need high-precision maps of the detailed data on the streets, and no one in the industry wants Google to see the last laugh. This map war battle is in full swing, many companies are competing.

No matter what day, there may be more than a dozen driverless cars in Silicon Valley drawing a map of the same corner. These cars come from different companies, but do the same thing: make high-precision street maps. These maps may eventually become a car navigation guide for unmanned vehicles.

These companies gather in places where law and weather are good – or where they can get the most attention. For example, a group of mapping vehicles gather near Las Vegas CES every year as the show is a popular stage to showcase the technological achievements of autonomous vehicles. Chris McNally, an analyst with Evercore ISI, said: “There could be 50 companies that ran a mapping of Las Vegas just to provide people with driverless car service during CES This is really a waste of resources. ”

Autonomous vehicles require powerful sensors to inspect the surroundings and also require advanced software to think and make decisions. In particular, they require the latest map of every imaginable road to travel. Who owns the most detailed and extensive map for vehicle reading, who will own a multibillion-dollar asset.

Because of this, a map war is opening in full swing: Dozens of competitors have entered a dazzling array of alliances that cost tens of millions of dollars in search of huge returns that may not come until many years later. Earlier in the year, Alphabet, Google, became the undisputed winner in consumer digital maps, where human pilots could bypass rush hour traffic or find restaurants. Google is how to win it? It dispatches cartography streetscape cars around the world, and it also has software expertise unmatched by map-based navigation companies, carmakers and even Apple. No one wants Google to win again.

So, companies involved in autonomous vehicle mapping are taking two different strategies, one of which is creating a complete high-precision map that will allow future autonomous vehicles to drive completely independently; the other is to create a bit by bit Map, the use of sensors on the vehicle, let the car gradually increase the degree of automatic driving.

Alphabet is taking both strategies. According to four insiders, a team within Google is developing a 3D map project that may license carmakers. This mapping service differs from the high-precision map that Waymo, another subsidiary of Alphabet, created for its autonomous vehicles.

Google’s mapping project focuses on so-called driver assistance systems to enable cars to automate some of their driving functions and help them see what is going on in the road ahead or at the corner. An early version of Google’s “Vehicle Map Service” released by Google in March incorporated sensor data into their maps.

Currently, Google is offering the service to car makers using Android Automotive, Google’s embedded operating system. So far, Google has created three partners for the system, but other car makers are reluctant to hand over their center console to the search giant. So, according to people familiar with the matter, Google is looking to expand the capabilities of the map service and look for other distributions.

In a statement, a Google spokesman said: “We’ve built a comprehensive world map for people, and we are working hard to expand the usefulness of our car-facing maps.” She declined to comment on plans for the future.

In the meantime, Waymo and other giants, including GM, Uber and Ford Motor Company, which have large unmanned research teams, each sent their own fleets to create rich and detailed high-precision map. There are also smaller startups selling devices or proprietary software that make such a map to car makers who feel they are far behind others. Still other vendors are building map services for general vehicles, but these services have only a handful of automation features such as adaptive cruise control or night vision.

These autonomous driving car maps are much more demanding than the old digital map requirements, resulting in huge investments in Detroit, Silicon Valley and China. “Autonomous cars want maps to be as accurate, accurate and real-time as possible,” said Bryan Salesky, who led Argo AI, a startup founded a year ago. “Off-the-shelf solutions do not exist.” Argo AI has won Ford’s $ 1 billion investment.

Cartographic tools trader

Just like creating a driverless car, making a driverless car map can be a daunting task. Unmanned test fleets, loaded with expensive lidar sensors and cameras, are to be dispatched with human drivers to capture the environment. Drawing the results helps to train the next team, the team will still be equipped with a safe driver – in some cases, you still need dozens of people sitting in front of the computer to classify all the camera.

This is a costly test and can take years to get a return, if not decades later. “How are you updating even though you can drive your own vehicle and travel on every road in the world?” Asked Dan Galves, a Mobileye spokesman. “You have to do it again Send these mapping vehicles. ”

Unlike traditional digital maps, autonomous vehicle maps require near-continuous updates. Even subtle changes in the road – overnight areas of buildings, or a bit of debris – may affect the driverless car. “Driverless cars do not work properly in the weird conditions,” said analyst McNally.

Mobileye believes it will be more efficient and cost-effective for the cars we drive today to see the roads ahead. In January, Intel announced a “low-bandwidth” mapping project that plans to bring its front-facing camera and chip sensor to 2 million cars this year. The company’s idea is to allow the car to see information such as lane markings, traffic signals and road boundaries so that they can be partially autonomous.

Mobileye said demand for computing power is less than building a comprehensive high-precision road map; Mobileye’s Greif said the company will use its sensor data to map with the navigation company to create a fully autonomous car Map that can be used.

This is also Google’s long-standing strategy of two map competitors, HERE and TomTom NV. The two European companies have positioned themselves as major alternatives to Google Maps and are dedicated to selling console maps to carmakers. However, these “static” maps can only see the rough street conditions and capture real-time snapshots. Now both companies are developing alternatives: “dynamic” maps that show lanes, curbs and everything else on the road. They hope that car makers stick to the products of traditional map makers as they transition from an intelligent vehicle to fully autonomous vehicles without a steering wheel.

HERE, owned by a German carmaker consortium, provides some examples. Its mapping system brings limited hands-free driving to Audi, one of its co-owners, and security capabilities this year for another co-owner, BMW, which acquired 15% of HERE last year.

Tesla, the company that supplies Autopilot, ancillary driving software, is the most urgent car company to embrace the strategy of gradually moving toward autonomous driving. Tesla relies on cameras and sensors on the vehicle but does not use lidar. The company has not disclosed which map service its Autopilot will adopt and its company representative declined to comment. Tesla unhappy with Mobileye two years ago parted ways to stop cooperation.

However, Tesla has at least chosen another company, Mapbox, to help integrate the map. According to the regulatory documents it submitted, Tesla paid $ 5 million in biennial licensing fees to Mapbox in December 2015. Mapbox mainly sells its location data to apps such as Pinterest and Snapchat. After a recent round of financing of $ 164 million, the company began to get involved in car maps. Mapbox says it’s capable of drawing about 220 million miles of road data globally every day, providing the latest snapshots of basic things like streets and lanes with software installed on the phone.

Eric Gundersen, the startup’s chief executive, said: “We currently have more sensors on the road than the total number of sensors in the connected automotive industry by 2020.” For automakers, , Mapbox’s selling point is to use its location data as a base layer for future maps – pairing it with camera systems like Mobileye’s or their own sensor data. Like other companies targeting carmakers, Mapbox is happy to play a neutral role and is willing to work with anyone. “We do not know who will win,” Gunderson said.

A new generation of Pathfinder

Not only is it unknown who will have the last laugh, the mapping industry does not even know which strategy is better and every autopilot car map will look different because different sensor systems will produce different maps . Nabeel Hyatt, an early investor in Cruise Automation from Spark Capital, said there is no standard sensor kit in the area. Cruise Automation was a self-driving car company bought by General Motors in 2016 for $ 580 million.

Therefore, a group of high-precision mapping companies are making different attempts on this issue. They are favored by venture capital and are also striving for lucrative contracts. Some of them disagree with Mobileye’s strategy, which relies on a seamless transition from semi-autonomous driving (so-called level 2 and level 3) to driverless driving (level 4 or 5). “It is very difficult to climb from Level 2 to Level 3 and then to Level 4 again,” said Wei Luo, chief operating officer of DeepMap Corp. “The gap is huge,” he said, with the best high Precision maps are built around driverless features. The startup said it is working with Ford, Honda and China’s SAIC, Mobileeye and SAIC, and Waymo is in talks with Honda about the deal.

Waymo is also in this camp. Originally known as Google’s driverless car project, which started as a map in 2009, Andrew Chatham of Waymo and another engineer started the “super tedious” drawing effort from scratch – Send a sensor-equipped car to capture the city’s surroundings and transform those 3D images into digital landscapes. Chatham said that the car may rely on the perception system to be able to drive on the highway, but not in other traffic conditions. Imagine a situation when you meet a busy double left lane intersection you’ve never seen before. Now imagine what happens to autonomous vehicles.

“This is the advantage of having a detailed map,” Chatham said. “We could give the car all the answers to the tough questions.” He said Waymo is exploring solutions that reflect real-time factors such as construction updates, but declined to give details.

With years of hard work and a strong library of artificial intelligence technologies, Waymo is considered a leader in high-precision mapping. But so far, the company has sold its entire suite to potential partners and achieved some cooperation. Chatham declined to say whether Waymo is considering marketing its map as a standalone product.

Another potential force in this market is Uber. The taxi service giant is also developing high-precision maps of its driverless car project, using a test vehicle similar to Waymo. Lisa Weitekamp, ​​Uber manager, said the company is exploring how to put map generation sensors in millions of cars on its service platform. Vittor Camp added that those maps already in use by the car – Uber’s “static” navigation software that includes popular routes and driving decisions – helped Uber create autonomous maps. “It gives us an edge,” she said.

That would make taxi service map access a valuable asset. Currently, Uber’s maps for its drivers and passengers use both TomTom, Google and its own data. Two insiders disclosed that the contract between Uber and Google will expire this year. Representatives of both companies declined to comment.

Many newcomers are trying to emphasize to car makers the need for automakers to catch up with leaders such as Waymo and Uber. DeepMap, co-founded by former senior employees of Google and Apple, relies on its smart software to reduce the time and cost required to convert images from autonomous vehicle sensors into a single high-resolution landscape. The startup said it is working with Ford, Honda and China’s SAIC.

Civil Maps has a technology that discerns sensor data that can be used to create a digital grid for each loop made by mapping vehicles in the same area. The company’s chief executive, Sravan Puttagunta, said it was a bit like the way mobile apps Shazam recognized a piece of music. Ford is an investor in Civil Maps and Putta Gangata says his company is raising additional funds.

At present, most car companies are at the trial stage and do not pay millions for the map. Ford spokesman described his cooperation with startups as “research.” Argo, a self-driving car the company is betting on, has learned about many suppliers but currently relies on its own in-house map. GM spokesman Ray Wert said the company prefers to make its own maps.

The new company is well aware that ultimately no one will survive. “This is very similar to navigable maps and even to search engines,” said Luo Wei, a staff employee who worked for Google at DeepMap. “Whoever has a bigger footprint will have an edge.”

2017 is an impressive year for the semiconductor industry due to the fact that the three end markets: PC, smartphones and data centers outperform 2016.

At the same time, we have noticed that in 2017, the driving force for rapid development of the semiconductor market around the world is also on the rise. Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things are becoming the driving forces behind the growth of the market.

Specifically, markets such as autopilot and industrial internet of things are on the rise, with unparalleled demand for storage solutions, while artificial intelligence places high demands on high-performance processors.

Memory market

In 2017, the storage market is growing faster than the entire semiconductor market. In the past year, the storage market increased by 80.5%, while the semiconductor market grew by only 35%. At the same time, memory prices have risen dramatically in 2017 due to demand for DRAM out of supply by mobile and server equipment.

DRAM

In 2017, Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron are the three largest players in the DRAM market. According to statistics from DRAMeXchange, the overall revenue of the DRAM market in 2017 increased by 16.2%, reaching a record high of US $ 19.2 billion in the third quarter of 2017.

Analysts ICInsights said Samsung, SK hynix and Micron, the top three companies in the DRAM market, accounting for more than 95% market share, but also makes these companies in the 2017 semiconductor company revenue rankings in the top five.

Mika Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner, predicts that DRAM out-of-stock will continue until the end of 2018, meaning that Samsung will become a semiconductor company with revenue over Intel’s revenue in 2017 and 2018, respectively.

NAND

DRAMeXchange data show that NAND market revenue increased by 14.3% in the third quarter of 2017 reached a record 15 billion US dollars.

Although the price of NAND is stable, the demand of NAND and SSD has been strong due to seasonal factors, setting a record high.

In the third quarter, Samsung, Toshiba and SK hynos increased by 19.5%, 18.1% and 15.4% respectively.

Walter Coon, director of NAND market research at IHS, said the NAND market will see weak and seasonal demand from the end of 2017 to early 2018, but the demand in the 3D NAND market is still strong.

As the market gradually realizes a balance between supply and demand, the rise in memory prices will not be the norm, especially as vendors continue to increase capacity.

Because suppliers want to earn long-term profits, they must comply with market rules.

As the IoT market continues to evolve, memory needs will also grow. Expected, the memory price will be moderate correction in 2018, but not a substantial decline.

Micron and Samsung in 2018 will continue to see high DRAM prices?

The biggest difference between DRAM and NAND is that DRAM is inelastic in demand, which means that demand is not affected by price changes, and it is difficult to limit its demand even now that DRAM prices are high.

The advantage is that PCs and mobile devices must use a certain amount of DRAM to achieve the expected performance, making DRAM a necessity in electronic devices.

Therefore, the shortage of DRAM products in PC and the increase of DRAM usage in mobile devices are also one of the reasons that DRAM continues to rise since June 2016. In turn, Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron are among the top five companies in revenue.

As more and more graphics-intensive applications in smartphones emerge and more and more adopt new technologies such as machine learning in data centers, there is a growing demand for memory. In particular, the graphics cards used by AMD and the memory used in some smartphones have caught up with mid-range computers, all of which indicate that the demand for DRAM will not decline in 2018.

DRAMeXchange predicts that by 2018, global DRAM supply will increase by 19.6%

The stock situation will be accompanied by phase.

The reason for this is that DRAM suppliers have always followed the rule that most of the money should be invested in technology rather than for capacity expansion.

Although these companies are now building a new DRAM manufacturing plant, but from the current progress point of view, by 2019 on the line is unlikely, so all three companies in 2018 will maintain a high revenue.

In particular, Samsung is currently focusing primarily on high-value products such as 10nm DRAM and DDR4X.

2018 NAND market will happen?

We mentioned before, DRAM market demand is inelastic, but the demand for NAND is flexible. So naturally, as NAND prices rise, market demand will decrease.

What’s more, the shortage of NAND market in 2017 is mainly due to the transfer of technology.

Another reason is that with the exception of Samsung and SK Hynix, NAND players are more involved and more competitive, and Intel, Western Digital and Toshiba are both involved in this market. Therefore also makes this market competition more fiercely than the DRAM market.

According to data from DRAMeXchange, last year, Samsung, SK Hynix and Toshiba saw growth of around 15% in this market.

NAND market 2018 outlook

For the 2018 NAND market, analysts predict not exactly the same.
Some believe the NAND market will be in balance by 2018, while others believe there will be oversupply in this market by 2018. The reason for this concern is that many suppliers are mass-producing 64-layer or 72 Layer NAND way to expand production capacity.

DRAMeXchange expects NAND production capacity to grow 43% by 2018 while market demand will only increase by 38%. Obviously, this will create oversupply which may result in a price drop.

At present, some signs have even been seen on the market. In the first quarter of 2018, the average sales price of Micron’s NAND products dropped by 3%, which is obviously not a good sign.

However, the impact of this indeed for Samsung will be much smaller, because Samsung has great technical advantages in 3D NAND, but still does not rule out future competition from Micron pressure.

Micron, 2017 earnings milestone

Like Samsung, in 2017, Micron’s revenue also hit a new high due to the memory market.

The main drivers of this growth are the strong demand in the DRAM market, the steady growth of NVIDIA graphics cards, and the impact of data centers and other factors.

In addition, Micron contributed record financial performance to the SSD products used in the data center.

After entering 2018, many analysts are predicting the future memory market.

Many believe the consumer demand will be met as suppliers’ availability increases. However, it is worth noting that as mentioned earlier, since the new capacity required in 2018 will require at least two Year’s time to climb, memory prices will remain high in the short term.

What’s more, there will not be a cliff-like decline in any recession, especially with the advent of artificial intelligence and more IoT products in 2018, which will further expand the consumer-grade memory market. For example, we have seen NVIDIA graphics cards, Tesla cars have made a lot of memory requirements.

Analysts believe that these will further promote the growth of Micron’s revenue, the automotive market, the car memory is a dedicated memory, the price will be higher.

With the growth of market segments such as automobiles and data centers, analysts believe Micron will continue to grow in these markets.

What will happen with the 2018 Micron?

As we said earlier, the DRAM market is a market with inelastic demand. In 2018, the DRAM market will continue to grow. Micron, the forerunner in the market, is also pushing the next generation of new technology.

In the first quarter of fiscal 2018, Micron’s 1X DRAMs have achieved relatively mature production volume and are expected to surpass the 20nm of the previous generation by the end of 2018.

However, due to new technology inputs, Micron said that this year Micron DRAM market growth rate will be lower than the market average.

On the other hand, at CES 2018, we have already seen some clues about DDR5 technology in the future. Although this product will be hard to be commercialized by 2020, it will consume more than its predecessor Low power.

In terms of NAND products, Micron expects to launch the second generation of 64-layer 3D NAND products in the second half of FY2018 and trial production of third-generation 3D NAND products in the second half of 2018. Although Micron did not disclose the details of its third-generation 3D NAND products, but know that Samsung’s third-generation 3D NAND products are 72 layers.

Micron believes that its NAND product growth rate will be higher than the market average growth rate of 50%.

From the above situation, we can see that Micron has been continuously investing and updating products in both DRAM and NAND products.

NVIDIA and the semiconductor industry trends

At the industry summit held in January 2017, there have been opinions that the Internet of Things, autonomous driving, 5G, AR / VR and artificial intelligence are the future directions of development. These technologies will bring about 30 billion U.S. dollars by 2025.

In addition to 5G, NVIDIA has long been concerned about the above several other technical trends. In fact, the GPU it produces currently has great advantages in the areas of artificial intelligence and autonomous driving, and NVIDIA is also investigating the possibility of GPU applications in the Internet of Things, and in particular the Industrial Internet of Things.

A report released by Jon Peddie Research released a detailed analysis of GPU applications on different terminal platforms. From the figure above we can see that mobile devices and computers are still the largest GPU application market.

At present, NVIDIA, AMD and Intel are the three main GPU suppliers. Among them, Intel’s shipments accounted for 68% to 70% of the overall market, but the GPU it provides are mainly integrated in the processor used by the PC.

NVIDIA GPU is a separate GPU, accounting for more than 70% market share.

In the past few years, NVIDIA has been widely applied to its independent GPU in addition to the PC market, artificial intelligence, intelligent driving, Internet of Things and industry and other market segments.

Many analysts believe that now NVIDIA is at the cusp of the fourth technology transfer. There are many possibilities for development, and even compared it to Apple’s ten years ago.

In the past year of 2017, we have seen some areas such as artificial intelligence and e-sports propelled NVIDIA revenue growth. These growth points will continue in 2018, meanwhile, the new growth point of autonomous driving may also break out.

It can be said that 2017 Nvidia is invincible, and 2018 also has a lot of competition.

In the past three years, NVIDIA’s revenue more than doubled from $ 4.7 billion in 2015 to $ 9.7 billion in FY 2018. This growth is also the NVIDIA into the world’s top ten semiconductor companies ranks.

In addition, the strong growth momentum of NVIDIA also comes from the data center. In this market, NVIDIA has also enjoyed a three-digit increase in the past six quarters. In addition, NVIDIA has witnessed the increasing popularity of electronic sports. NVIDIA also needs a better discrete graphics card to provide higher performance. The trend is also for NVIDIA to provide more and more customers with more detailed products.

NVIDIA’s latest Volta GPU architecture has received strong customer reaction. This product also contributed to GPU revenue in the data center. In 2018, NVIDIA revenue in this market reached 20%.

NVIDIA will continue to grow in 2018, but due to pressure from competitors and growth rate.

For now, the biggest competitor of NVIDIA is Intel, which is seeking cooperation with AMD in an attempt to enter the independent GPU market.

In addition, Intel’s processor is also used by Google for autonomous vehicles.

However, for NVIDIA, it is delightful that in 2018 we will see the launch of NVIDIA-equipped vehicles on the stage, and NVIDIA will launch its own car platform to help drive the development of autonomous vehicles.

In 2018, how the PC market will affect semiconductor companies

From the above, we can see that, whether it is Micron or NVIDIA, the PC market in its revenue still occupy not a small proportion. Intel and AMD also occupy a significant share of these two markets.

2017 is a good year for the PC market, where the slowdown in PC market sales has finally slowed down. Although the traditional desktop market is still declining, sales of laptops and gaming computers have increased rapidly. Although the forecasts for the PC market from Gartner and IDC are different, they both expressed similar views.

For 2017, Gartner expects global PC shipments to drop by 3.2% year-over-year to 425 million units. However, the data given by IDC dropped 2.7% to 423 million units.

IDC said that although the memory out of stock, but the performance of the traditional computer market has more than expected. In 2018 the situation will be better.

Gartner expects PC shipments to increase by 0.8% to 426 million units by 2018, while IDC believes the PC market will continue to decline, down 4% from a year ago to 400 million units.

AMD 2018 can maintain growth

When it comes to GPU, we have to mention AMD.

As Intel in the field of CPU, NVIDIA’s largest competitor in the field of GPU, AMD has seen significant growth in the past two years.

Finishing AMD The first quarter of 2016 to the latest quarter can be found, in fact, AMD from the second quarter of 2016 has been the continuous growth of performance, turnover is all the way to sing. In terms of profit, though, the company lost a huge loss of 109 million U.S. dollars in 2016, but by 2017, the company started to turn around again.

In terms of products, AMD has released various new products and consumer terminals frequently in the past two years. Not only AMD Rui Long 3 Series, 5 Series and 7 Series, but also high-end Threadripper processors are firmly in the hands of different consumers The demand. In terms of graphics cards, it launched Vega, focusing on new areas such as AI, game design and visualization. In the server market, released EPYC, return to the data center market; also introduced Rui Long mobile processor.

AMD expects fiscal 2017 revenue growth of 22.5% to 5.2 billion US dollars, while analysts expect the chip maker in fiscal year 2017 revenue up 23%. However, analysts expect this growth to slow to 12.5% ​​in FY 2018.

In December 2017, AMD partnered with Intel to provide a discrete GPU for the latter’s gaming mobile PC platform. This partnership may increase Intel’s PC processor market revenue. By combining its GPUs with Intel’s processors, AMD can easily increase its GPU market share and compete with NVIDIA.

In 2018, AMD also plans to launch a lot of new products, so AMD can really survive in 2018 Intel’s competition?

2017 is a very busy year for AMD.

In the just-concluded global technology event CES, AMD introduced a variety of heavyweight products, and announced a substantial price plan. Ryzen 7 1800X high-end price cuts by 40%. Significant price cuts over Intel processor vulnerabilities, comprehensively enhance the company Ryzen and Threadripper chips and Intel chips of similar competitiveness, will help grab a certain market share in the future.

Also at CES, Dr. Su Tzufeng, AMD’s CEO, mentioned that Ryzen products provide the data processing power that rivals the Intel Core i5-8400 processor and the NVIDIA GT 1030 graphics card, but at a cheaper price of $ 120. This will be the good news for those who want to save money but are not willing to sacrifice their computing power.

AMD is operating in a duopoly market. Its goal is not to surpass its competitors by introducing state-of-the-art technology, but to provide competitive products that offer consumers cheaper options and help them gain market share.

In 2017, AMD foundry partners announced a 12-nanometer technology node. So, AMD may upgrade its Ryzen series from 12nm to 7nm.

At present, AMD has provided a 12nm upgrade version of the Ryzen desktop processor sample, which was released last year, was using 14nm process technology. The chip will be put into production from April, using Globalfoundries upgrade process announced last year. At the same time, Ryzen 2 design has also been completed, but AMD did not give details of internal or shipping date.

AMD’s first 7nm GPU will be a version of its Vega design aimed at machine learning. AMD will catch up with its rival Nvidia on the GPU side, which dominates this nascent field after the launch of Volta in 2017, with Volta becoming its first chip with machine-learning hardware.

Why 2017 is important to Intel

Finally, let’s take a look at Intel.

Although, in 2017, Samsung took the No. 1 spot on storage surpassing Intel, Intel did not sit still.

It is working hard to expand its business area to capture several other markets: the Internet of Things, 5G, AR / VR and Artificial Intelligence.

After the acquisition of Altera, due to strong growth in the data center, Internet of Things, etc., Intel’s revenue in 2017 relative to 2016, is expected to grow 4.4%.

As the world moves toward intelligence and the Internet of Things, Intel is working with its rivals in areas it believes are mutually beneficial.

In addition to the previously mentioned cooperation with AMD, Intel also announced several technical aspects of the car and 5G.

Intel is currently transitioning from a PC-centric to a data-centric company. 2016 and 2017, Intel’s corporate structure has undergone significant changes. 2018 More changes can be seen in the company’s strategy.

Wall Street analysts expect Intel’s fiscal year 2018 revenue rose 3% to $ 63.8 billion. However, this growth estimate is based on the prevailing market conditions and will vary with changing trends.

Intel currently offers GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) to provide modems for Apple’s iPhone handsets. The company is developing its own CDMA modem and expects to offer CDMA modems for the iPhone by 2018.

Intel is also competing with Qualcomm in the 5G competition. Both companies launched their 5G modems in 2017.

In addition, Intel is working with more and more automotive manufacturers on the development of autopilot programs that are dedicated to auto-emblem and state-of-the-art AI (Artificial Intelligence) technology.

Intel 2018 will be what kind of development

In addition to the new market, Intel can continue to grow in the PC market.

2018 You can see the long-awaited launch of the 10-nm node, which will make Intel a leading technology provider.

Intel demonstrated the performance of the 10-nanometer Cannon Lake desktop processor at CES 2017, but did not reveal information about the 10-nanometer node. In fact, Intel introduced the 14-nanometer eighth generation Coffee Lake processor by the end of 2017.

Now, Intel has changed its product roadmap, the node transition to become longer.

According to Intel’s original plan, the production of the old node will no longer be made when the conversion to the new node is completed. However, in 2018 we may see two nodes coexist.

At the end of 2018, Intel is likely to launch the Ninth Generation Cannon Lake or Ice Lake CPU at 10nm, which will co-exist with the 14nm Coffee Lake CPU.

If Intel further postponed its launch of 10nm, it will lose its technical advantages.

Intel’s Artificial Intelligence Innovation

As the global leader in the PC industry, Intel is committed to promoting the development of the traditional PC industry through technological advances on the one hand, and has gradually identified a number of key players including PCC Smart, autonomous driving, precision medical, 5G and other force direction.

In these new business areas, Intel is most likely to achieve increased chip business capabilities with artificial intelligence and autonomous driving.

Focus on autonomous driving, March 13, 2017, Intel announced the acquisition of Israeli company Mobileye for 15.3 billion US dollars. Mobileye’s algorithms and data are likely to become the monopoly market giants in the more subtle, core technology-based automotive market. Data shows that Mobileye’s technology has infiltrated almost into the mainstream automobile factory, and Mobileye products are used by automobile manufacturers such as Tesla, BMW, GM, Volvo and Ford.

In the area of ​​artificial intelligence, Intel’s $ 350 million acquisition of Nervana Systems, a deep learning company, in August 2017 was seen as a catalyst for Intel’s AI strategy. In order to promote artificial intelligence performance bottlenecks and technological popularization, Intel has established alliances, including Google and other giants, and at the same time, it cooperates with global organizations to provide developer training courses so as to build an ecosystem involving artificial intelligence technology upgrading, education and training, application optimization and the like .

Deloitte recently released the “AI Trend Report”, analyzing and forecasting cutting-edge technological trends such as artificial intelligence and AR.

Deloitte expects that more than 1 billion smartphone users will have at least one AR content creation experience by 2018, with direct revenue of $ 1 billion in 2020, equivalent to 10 times revenue in 2018.

Before 2018, AR technology may be more used for facial filtering self-portraits, but now and in the future, chorus with celebrities, interaction with tigers, and players playing with the ball can get a more realistic experience through the AR.

Deloitte predicts that by the end of 2023, smartphone penetration will reach 90% of the adult population in developed countries in the world, up from 85% in 2018.

In 2023, global smart phone sales will reach 1.85 billion, up 19% from 2018. The average selling price of smartphones will reach 350 US dollars, up 8% from the end of 2017. The number of smartphones that sell for more than $ 1,000 is 180 million.

The upgrading of smart phones will be reflected in the invisible factors such as connectivity, processor, camera, software, AI, memory, sensors and so on.

Deloitte predicts that in 2018, 45% of the world’s adult smartphone users are worried about using the phone for an extended period of time. Two-thirds of people aged 18-24 think they use the phone for too long.

In 2017, people watch cell phones on average 50 times a day. But the real addiction to the phone less than 3%.

Deloitte predicts that the annual sales of machine learning chips for global data centers will increase from 100,000 to 200,000 in 2016 to 800,000 in 2018 and that these chips will increasingly use machine learning technologies .

Deloitte expects more and more midsize and large enterprises to start deploying machine learning, doubling the number in 2017 by 2018 and quadrupling by 2018 from 2020. However, the number of practitioners, tools are not mature enough, access to data and other restrictions will limit the popularity of machine learning technology.

Deloitte predicts direct broadcast and event broadcasts will generate more than $ 545 billion in direct revenue in 2018, with 98.5% coming from traditional industries and the rest from streaming live and electronic sports.

Deloitte expects 680 billion digital subscriptions globally (less than $ 10 a month) by 2020, including 375 million video-on-demand subscriptions, 150 million music subscriptions, 35 million game subscriptions and 20 million news subscriptions Copies

Deloitte predicts that in North America, 80% of adults use at least one type of ad blocker and 50% of adults use two types of ad blocker. This is a huge challenge to the online advertising market.

Deloitte predicts that in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, the time it takes to watch traditional television will fall by 5% to 15% in 2018 and 2019. However, this is not a critical point, but it is basically consistent with the trend of the past seven years.

Deloitte predicts that 20% of North American households will have full access to Internet data through their mobile handset network by 2018. With the commercialization of 5G, the mobile Internet will become a more popular choice.

Deloitte predicts that by 2018 there will be 1 billion passengers flying aircraft with Internet connection (IFC), up 20% from 2017. Ten percent of passengers are willing to pay for IFC, which will create about $ 1 billion in revenue for airlines.